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It’s been so long since I’ve loved one of Jane Zhang’s theme songs, and this one is a work of genius.

The theme song to the eponymous film Land of Beauty 西游记女儿国 combines probably the two most beautiful love poems depicting the conflict between earthly love and eternal salvation, one told from the woman and one from the monk’s perspective, to create this beautiful duet.

Because she’s too precious for this world and we might never see this again. source

It’s actually pretty rare for Chinese pop music to make it into official programs, so here’s one of my favorites as the season ends. Li Zijun, one of China’s top female figure skaters, skating to Jane Zhang‘s “Only for Love.”

Jane Zhang refused to accept her two MTV Europe Music Awards (EMA), as well as participate in any related activities, after being told that she would not be allowed to accept her award on stage and would have to settle for receiving it backstage.

October 25 saw the announcement of this year’s MTV EMA winners at a ceremony in Milan, Italy. Though focused primarily on Europe, the EMAs also aim to celebrate artists from each continent with regional and worldwide awards. This year, Jane was nominated for “Best Asian Act” (officially known as “Worldwide Act: Asia”) and “Best Chinese & Hong Kong Act,” both of which she ended up winning.

Originally, Jane planned to thank her fans for their overwhelming support (since the EMAs are decided by fan votes) when she went on stage to accept her awards. However, less than two hours before she was to appear on the red carpet, MTV notified her team and said that because not all of the winners from the other continents were present, Jane and the other Worldwide Act winners would have to accept their awards backstage.

During her Bang the World tour, Jane Zhang suddenly announced that she was in a relationship with Michael Feng (Feng Ke), the CEO of Show City Times, which is Jane’s management company. The two have been together for 12 years.

While in Changsha on July 4, Jane surprised everyone, including her boyfriend, with an unplanned announcement. “From when I was 18 years old to 30 years old, I haven’t been waiting,” she said, referring to her song “Finally Waited for You” (终于等到你), which she had just finished singing. “Because there is a person who has always been by my side.”

Jane then explained that she had originally wanted to go public with their relationship in 2005, the same year she competed in Super Girl (超级女声), but Michael was against the idea, because he didn’t want the news to negatively affect her nascent singing career. Now that 10 years have passed and she is nearing her 31st birthday, Jane felt that now was the perfect time to make her announcement.

“I don’t want to be alone anymore,” she declared. “You’ve all been with me in the 10 years since my debut, and so has this person. I’ve already thought it through. If you’re willing to marry me, then come on stage.”

Meanwhile, here is one more of those pretty theme songs she excels at. The song is written by up-and-rising musician Xu Ziwei, who also wrote the theme song for upcoming Chen Xiao drama Twilight of the Empire :

Film You’re My Sunshine released three theme songs this week in anticipation for their April 30th release- You’re My Sunshine by Huang Xiaoming, You’re My Sunshine in English by Jane Zhang, and Silence by Na Ying. The film is so scary that both of the other youth films originally set for the May holidays, Ever Since We Loveand The Left Ear, have moved up their release dates to avoid it.

Na Ying and Huang Xiaoming signing to each other in black and white, and making it seem like this movie is really about Huang Xiaoming and Angelababy:

Remember the last time on world tour, I said “I also want to be the best in your hearts.”This is the direction of my hard work! #janezhangbangtheworld# officiallytooktenyears, thank you to all of you guys for always being by my side. @janezhangBANGtheWorldconcert

Jane announced the kickoff of her 2015 world tour ‘Bang The World” yesterday, releasing two very eye catching promotional posters by Chen Man.Continue reading →

Malaysian singer Jess Lee gasps in surprise as television personality, Rolling Wang (not to be confused with annoying viral chicken video songstress Rollin Wang), rolls into her hotel room with a breakfast cart adorned with breads, milk and fruit. Her eyes remain fixed on the food as he greets her and wishes her a happy new year.

Is that a plate of cherry tomatoes? Who eats just cherry tomatoes?

Li Jian and his manager, Shen Mengchen, are the first to arrive on the I Am A Singer set. He flicks on the TV to inspect the competition. “Jess Lee,” Shen muses, tapping the remote to reveal her song choice. “Suffering.”
“I’ve never heard that song before,” admits Li Jian. “Have you?”
“No, I haven’t. Let’s put it on now.”
This isn’t the first time a Chinese celebrity has claimed not to know Jess Lee.

Meanwhile, in the halls of HunanTV headquarters, Han Hong examines a poster of Jane Zhang wearing a stunning white and gold dress.

Some of the contestants are taking naps on their sofas. Li Jian and The One, too tall for the furniture, dangle their limbs off the side. Han Hong fits snuggly within the arm rests.

Li Jian
Bonds 尘缘 by Roman Tam

Li Jian is looking rather snazzy. He’s wearing a charcoal suit with a purple crew-neck tee and pocket square. And a watch on his right hand, oddly enough. I am totally going to steal this look for my next business casual event (I think this qualifies as business casual).

Li Jian’s performances tend to be very hit or miss. This one’s a miss. It’s slow, with no real musical or vocal climax. And that’s typical Li Jian. But it doesn’t have that unique “oomph” that makes Li Jian’s good performances good. His better songs usually come when they’re less piano-driven. Unfortunately, this one is super pianoed-up. It’s altogether a bit dull.

Hey, there’s a Caucasian dude watching the show. I bet we’ll be seeing a lot of him tonight.

It’s a good thing there’s a white person in the audience. Otherwise, we wouldn’t know if our opinions are valid or not.

A peculiarly dressed Jane Zhang is eliminated from the competition. Who comes up with these headlines?

It was the Lunar New Year holiday last week, so our seven favourite singers have wandered off for a bit (happy new year to all of Cfensi’s wonderful readers, by the way).

Jane Zhang is in Beijing, not wearing make-up but still looking pretty, and preparing dinner. She says she hasn’t cooked in a long time. That’s probably why she holds her knife like she’s ironing a shirt. But I imagine she hasn’t ironed for herself in a long time either.

Sun Nan is in Sanya on Hainan Island, the “Hawaii of China,” where he demonstrates everything wrong with the Chinese entertainment industry today.
1) That’s a very wrong way of doing push-ups (Chinese celebrities don’t work out enough)
2) Vertical filming (there aren’t enough good cameramen working in Chinese television)

Awkwardly humping the sand is not a push-up.

Tan Weiwei, like Jane, is in Beijing, drinking vegetable soup and munching on a carrot from a cardboard bowl. Her manager complains that she needs to eat more than just vegetables so she can put on weight.

The One is back in Korea, bringing Xiao Wu with him. They’ve ordered a whole stack of bento-like, dosirak takeout boxes, and The One is doing an awful lot of talking with his mouth full. You’d think all these celebrities would get nice fancy meals, but not so much.

A-Lin is in Taiwan, where she bumps into unsuccessful I Am A Singer challenger Li Ronghao. “Hey, you’re back?” he asks, reasoning that A-Lin must have been eliminated.
“I’m back!” she replies, perhaps not really getting that. She then bumps into Karen Mok, who says nice things to her, but is very clearly aware of who is the real A-lister between the two (it’s not A-Lin).

We don’t get to see Li Jian or Han Hong’s Spring Festival outings. Mysterious.

The I Am A Singer green room has a Chinese New Year tree with presents underneath it. I hope this doesn’t become a thing. I’m probably getting to that age where people feel comfortable about not getting you presents, so there’s no way I will benefit from this.
Oh, and Sun Nan takes over as host from Leo Ku, thus answering the question I’ve been asking for the past two weeks. But now who will host when Sun Nan leaves?

Han Hong
Olive Tree 橄榄树 by Chyi Yu

This episode is spending a lot of time on the introduction to this performance. Firstly, Tan Weiwei discovers that Han Hong is singing Olive Tree by Chyi Yu. “People always recommend that I sing this song, but I don’t dare to,” she says, citing the rhythm and timing of the song. “It’s really difficult.”
Meanwhile, Anson is helping out Han Hong with the arrangement. It’s probably part of his secret plan to get as much screentime as he can now so that the audience will vote him back in in the comeback round. Isn’t that the plot of the Chicago?

Han Hong tells the story of how her father died when she was young and her mother remarried. After that, she ran away to Beijing to find her grandmother, and hasn’t been with her mother since then. When her grandmother passed away, Han Hong was by herself, with no direction and no roots. Despite all this, there is still an olive tree in her heart, she says. That raises some horticultural questions.

Fellow Tibetan-ish singer Yangjima sang this song on Chinese Idol, where Han Hong is a judge. The performances are completely different so it’s hard to compare, but Han Hong’s is vocally more impressive. I can’t tell if her shoes are gold, or if they’re silver and it’s just the lighting that makes them look gold. The timing of the pause at the end is slightly off when the band starts playing before Han Hong starts singing. Tan Weiwei totally saw that coming. Continue reading →

Tibetan Buddhist monks join Han Hong on stage in this week’s I Am A Singer.

I Am A Singer, this year, is sponsored by Honda and Oppo. So the singers drive up in their Honda cars which totally look like the Jeeps from Jurassic Park, and unbox their new Oppo smartphones. They watch the introductory video for the newest contestant, Korean singer The One, but none of them know who he is. Obviously they didn’t watch the first season. For shame.
The One’s “manager” on the show is Xiao Wu, the Korean member of Top Combine. He does most of the interpreting for him. Let’s hop straight into it.

Don’t worry. The dinosaurs don’t start eating people until after Newman shuts down the park’s security system.

This time, Jane is singing a song that G.E.M recorded back in 2013. The similarities stop there, however. While G.E.M’s version was a demure, piano-only track, Jane’s arrangement features the whole band. Her voice harks back to her time on Super Girl. It’s powerful and free. It’s everythi- oh… and now it’s been jazzed up with trumpets. So not only did she not watch the first season of I Am A Singer, but she didn’t read my comments from last week’s episode either.

Besides almost ruining the song by turning it into a breezy jazz number, Jane actually did sing it really well. Nobody else has performed yet, but we have a strong contender for best vocal performance of the night. Continue reading →